A country of six regions

Okay I don't really know how this would end but ….

I cannot for the love of me imagine why human beings with heads on their shoulders and some tissue mass in it would resort to violent demonstrations to show their non-agreement with the results of a poll. If you don't agree with me do I have to take a knife to your throat?  Lock up a few more in a building and set it on fire? And then still put the lives of hundreds in jeopardy? Of young men and women who had no issues to grind with you except that they took part in the elections as ad-hoc staff in their own country?

And then I hear mouths being opened to say that those that died where heroes of our land. Bloody hell! Do we need to butcher our own innocent and patriotic young people and make mincemeat of them just so we can find an excuse to use the word 'heroes'? And by the way whose heroes are they? Is he ‘hero’ of parents who slaved off to put him through at least fifteen years of schooling that didn't come cheap only to have his life cut short at just about when all the investment was beginning to show signs of making sense, or ‘hero’ to a country where after he had finished the mandatory 1 year cheap labour he would probably trek the length and breadth of the cities in search for security - nicely-tagged job - which is however non-existent?

Before you begin to wonder where all that anger is coming from, I'll tell you. I served my one year in Kaduna State in a remote village that was more than an hour and a half from the state's capital. When I served there had been no light (electricity), [not a big deal (yeah?)], for the very first six months of my stay in the village/town. And worst still there was not a single communications network. The best we could do for the first seven/eight months was to do a thirty minutes journey to a neighbouring town to make calls to friends and family and then another thirty minutes back to our place of primary posting. Four years later my brother serves in the same state, having spent four years in the federal university in the state's capital.

Imagine the chaos and confusion that was when we couldn't reach him and didn't hear from him when the riot started. I do not know what kind of story we would have been sharing if anything had happened to him.  Would we sit and ask ourselves why we allowed him to ever have gone so far from home to study; why we didn't insist after his education to come back home; why we hadn't gone to pull some strings to ensure he served in one of the states closer to home? What manners of condolences would be enough to dampen the loss of a brother, a son, and a friend in a land where his right to life, his right to freedom of expression, his right to freedom of association should be most upheld without thoughts to what ethnic background or political persuasion he is of? 

Similar questions I am sure the bereaved families would have asked themselves, unfortunately no amount of answers, apt or not, tactful or not, would ever bring their loved ones back to them.

I used to want to stay back in the north after my service year because it remains one of the best years of my life, yes in spite of the inconveniences that the absence of electricity and the initial lack of communication brought. It was a beautiful place. It didn't have the smokiness of my ‘Lasgidi’ state, the people were warm and friendly, of course disregarding the mostly miscommunication minor issues that arose due to difference in language. 

But now, how do I feel? I feel hurt, I feel pain, I feel hatred, yes I know it is a rather strong word, for the ones that incite the ‘stupids’ to violence, I feel fear at even the mention of a visit to friends from that side of the country and who live there. In a land of my birth? A place where my almost twelve years of primary and secondary school days where spent pledging to defend her honour and glory? “For what” I ask myself, now.

 p.s.

Lasgidi - Lagos